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An “army of bachelors”? China’s Male Population as World Threat
note accompanying the China White Paper on United States’
relations with China, the United States Secretary of State
Dean Acheson (1949) claimed that successive Chinese
governments had always failed to meet the nutritional needs
of the most populous country of earth. Acheson predicted
that even the new Communist regime would also struggle. In
Acheson’s view, ‘the first problem which every Chinese
government has had to face is that of feeding its population.
So far, none have succeeded.’(Acheson, 1949:iv). Revolution,
according to Acheson, was prompted by over-population
which had plagued China since the size of the population
had doubled through the 18 th and 19 th centuries. Acheson
argued that ‘By the beginning of the twentieth century, the
combined force of over-population and new ideas [from the
West] set in motion that chain of events which can be called
the Chinese revolution’ (Acheson, 1949: iv).
Acheson’s views were considered controversial both in
the United States and China. The White Paper was intended
by President Truman to provide an objective record of events
which would demonstrate that U.S. policies, aid and military
assistance supporting the Nationalist government in China
had been correct. The underlying belief was that ‘the
impending fall of China to the Communists was in no way
attributable to American policy’ and that the facts as
outlined in the White Paper would substantiate that belief
(Van Slyke, 1949). For Acheson, it is clear that events in
China cannot be blamed on American policy, action or,
indeed, non-action.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s response to
Acheson’s paper came in the form of five short essays by
Party Chairman Mao Zedong. In ‘The bankruptcy of the
idealist conception of history.’ Mao makes a famous and oftquoted
statement on the population question: ‘Of all things
in the world, people are the most precious.’ He goes on to
claim that, ‘Under the leadership of the Communist Party, as
long as there are people, every kind of miracle can be
performed…before long there will arise a new China with a
big population and a great wealth of products, where life will
be abundant and culture will flourish’ (Mao, 1969: 454).
The Chinese government’s riposte – that the large
population was an asset for China – replicated elements of a
longstanding but largely unrecognised debate within the
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